GreenBkk Tech | Laughing at the sins of iPhone 'Auto Correct'

Laughing at the sins of iPhone 'Auto Correct'

The new site Damn You Auto Correct! highlights amusing mistakes made by the iPhone's auto-correct feature.

Anyone with an iPhone or other touchscreen keyboard is no doubt familiar with the "auto-correct" feature, which tries to guess what you're going to type -- and fix your spelling -- before you finish.

Such programs are supposed to make our lives easier. But do they? We've all seen what can happen when we accidentally send an auto-corrected message that makes no sense.

Thankfully, a new website sees the humor in this. Damn You Auto Correct! collects examples of what can happen when we assume our iPhone knows what we're trying to say. Often, unintentional hilarity ensues.

Some of the more egregious examples -- at least the ones I can mention here -- replace "3d" with "3some," "emailed" with "nailed" and "kick" with "lick." (Use your imagination, folks.)

The irony is that the iPhone, a crown jewel of smartphones and one of the pioneering communication devices of the past decade, is the main culprit behind this auto-correct madness.

In fairness, auto-correct makes perfect sense for mobile technology. Messages are short and quick, texting or typing is usually done with one hand, and it can be hard to see the keys on a tiny, often virtual, keyboard. Without some help, many of our one-handed messages would look like "klamdlam alm mlksam!"

Then again, as Slate recently noted, the iPhone's auto-correct function turns "heard about garys internship at the whitehouse?" to "heard about farts internship at the whorehouse?"

Now that Apple has brought auto-correct to the iPad, will this become the standard on all computers? Will we forget how to spell even the most basic words?

Perhaps software designers can lean on the digital-only Oxford English Dictionary for some guidance on improving auto-correct.

Or we can just turn the damn thing off. To do that, touch the "Settings" icon on your iPhone, then go to "General," then "Keyboard," and then turn Auto-Correction off.

Credit: CNN